Wet Friday to delay debut of Lotus 'double DRS'

Lotus looks unlikely to be able to d?but their double DRS system this weekend at Spa, after the team lost virtually all of today's practice time on track because of the inclement weather.

After losing most of their Friday practice running time because of atrocious weather conditions at Spa, Lotus have conceded that it's unlikely they will get to deploy their latest upgrade 'device' this weekend after all.

"Today's rain prevented us from seeing how the 'Device' would perform in the expected race conditions," admitted the team's technical director James Allison. "With discretion being the better part of valour we will conduct P3 tomorrow with a conventional aero package rather than attempting to squeeze Friday's intended evaluation into the precious final practice session."

Commonly if inaccurately known as double DRS, Lotus hope that the new aerodynamic 'device' will see them finally clinch a Grand Prix victory in the second half of the season.

"It's a shame that we haven't been able to evaluate our new developments as it would have been interesting to see how they perform here," said his team mate Kimi Raikkonen, who has tried out earlier versions of the system at previous practice sessions.

"I was really looking forward to trying the famous 'Device' for the first time, but I guess I'll have to wait," said Romain Grosjean. "It's a big shame we couldn't do much running today as it was so wet."

Grosjean still seemed hopeful that the 'Device' might yet get make an appearance on Saturday. "The weather should be better tomorrow, so we'll have a busy time getting two days of evaluation into one session and then going straight into qualifying."

After spending a day shivering in the pit lane garages, everyone is hoping that those forecasts for Saturday and Sunday are accurate and that brighter, warmer conditions will return.

"The forecast is for better conditions over the next two days," said Raikkonen. "I'm looking forward to driving the circuit in the dry."

"The forecast for the next two days is for dry and warmer weather so running today was not very useful in terms of preparing for qualifying or the race," agreed Allison. "On the plus side we learned today that the cars are working fine and we're happy to end the day with no damage from running in these difficult conditions."